Garrett shook his head. "Get what over with?"
"This stupid game," she said. She balled one of her hands into a fist and punched her other palm.
"Are we playing a game?" he asked.
She lifted her hands in exasperation and turned to walk away. "Just forget it!" she said, "You're good at that... everybody is!"
"Wait!" Garrett cried, "Don't go!"
She stopped walking and half turned her face toward him. "What?" she asked.
"I know I know you," he said, "I just don't know from where."
"Yeah, you say that all the time," she said.
"And you keep saying things like that, like you talk to me all the time," Garrett said, "but I don't remember ever having talked you before."
The girl in brown turned all the way around to face him, her eyes suspicious.
"So... I'm guessing that, either you're crazy," Garrett said, "or we really do know each other, and there is some reason that I can't remember it afterwards."
"I'm not crazy," she hissed.
"No, I'm sorry," he said, "I don't think you are. That means there is some sort of magic or something happening here that keeps me from being able to remember you."
The girl raised her eyebrows.
"I'm right, aren't I?" Garrett said.
The girl opened her mouth, but seemed unable to speak. Her face twisted in frustration, and she waved her hands at her sides.
"And you can't talk about it either," Garrett said.
She gave him a tight smile.
"Can other people see you?" he asked.
She moved her lips a little without any sound and then gave up, sulking.
"All right," Garrett said, "let's try something. Caleb, go put your hand on that girl's shoulder."
Caleb shambled forward, toward the girl in brown with his hand outstretched.
"Hey! Get away from me!" she shouted, backing away from the oncoming zombie.
"Come back, Caleb!" Garrett commanded, and the zombie turned and shuffled back toward him again.
"Thanks," the girl said, eyeing Caleb warily.
"So Caleb can see you too," Garrett said, rubbing his chin with his free hand. He did need a shave. He struggled to collect his thoughts again. What had he just been thinking about?
He looked at the girl in brown again, and suddenly remembered what he had been trying to say. "There is something special about you that makes people forget you when you're not around," he said.
The girl in brown rolled her eyes and sighed.
"And you can't talk about it either," he said, "Is it some sort of curse?"
"And you can't talk about it either," she said, mimicking his voice.
"Yeah," Garrett said, "I guess so."
The girl slumped to the ground and sat with her back against the tunnel wall. She wrapped her arms around her knees and buried her face between them.
Garrett hesitated a moment and then handed the torch to Caleb before walking over to sit down beside her.
"I guess you don't have a lot of friends then," he said.
The girl gave a muffled snort but did not raise her head.
Garrett looked away, but looked back at her quickly, feeling his thoughts wandering. He didn't want to lose his train of thought again.
He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder.
The girl in brown moaned softly and lifted her face to him. A tear ran down her cheek across her trembling smile.
"Well," he said, "I'm your friend."
She snorted a wet laugh and nodded. "Thanks, Garrett," she whispered.
"And you want me to guess your name because you can't tell me what it is," he said.
She looked away, her lips trembling.
"Easy enough," he said, "I'll just work my way through the alphabet. It may take a while, but eventually..."
"No," she moaned, "not like that..."
"Why not?" he asked.
"Because I wanted it to be special," she said, "I wanted you to just... know it somehow. Then it would mean something."
"What difference does it make?"
She shook her head. "Because I wanted you to be different," she said, "I wanted you to..." she stopped herself and stared off into the darkness, saying no more.
Garrett felt a tingly sort of chill inside, strangely not unpleasant.
"Anyway," she said, elbowing him in the arm, "why do you want to be a Templar? Those guys are a bunch of brickheads."
Garrett sighed. "I don't know," he said, "I guess I don't want to, really. It's just that other people seem to think it's important that I do it. Does that make any sense?"
"More than you know," she laughed.
"Yeah," Garrett said, "but the temple isn't so bad, once you get past the beatings." He laughed.
She looked at him, concern in her eyes. "That place isn't safe," she said, "You don't know what goes on in there. Nobody does."
"They seem nice enough," Garrett said, "I mean, most of them. Miss Serepheni thinks I'll do all right."
"Serepheni's a fool!" the girl in brown said, "If she really cared about you, she wouldn't put you in harm's way like that."
"What do you mean?" Garrett said.
"The things that I've seen in that place, Garrett..." she said, "Please be careful."
"So, you've been inside the temple?" he asked, "Like, in the places you aren't supposed to go?"
The girl in brown sighed. "I've been everywhere, Garrett."
"Are you some sort of spy, or something?"
She laughed.
"Wait," he said, "can you tell me how they make skeletons? We never have figured out how they could do that. All we can make are zombies."
She glared at him. "Is that why you want to be a Templar?" she demanded.
Garrett cringed. "No," he said, "... not the only reason."
"Forget about it!" she said, "They'll kill you before they let you learn that secret, and anyway, it wouldn't do you any good if you knew it. It's not something you'd be able to do outside the temple anyway."
Garrett laughed.
"I'm serious!" she said.
"I know," he chuckled, "It's just that you told me to forget about it. I mean, I'm going to forget anyway, whatever you tell me, so why not tell me just for fun?"
She frowned, and he could see that he had hurt her.
"I'm sorry," he said, "I didn't mean it like that."
She looked away.
Garrett worked up his nerve and leaned close, putting his arm around her shoulders. She pulled away for a moment, and then the resistance drained out of her body, and she leaned against him, her head under his chin. It felt good.
"I don't want to forget about you," he said.
"It doesn't matter," she whispered.
Garrett chewed his lip in thought. "Hey!" he said, "I've got an idea."
She lifted her head from his chest and looked at him.
"I've got a pen in my satchel," he said, moving his arm to reach for the strap of his bag, "I could write myself a note..."
"No!" she said, her fingers clamping around his wrist like an iron vice, "Don't even think it!"
"Why not?" Garrett said, "Maybe I can't remember you normally, but, if I wrote myself a note..."
"Garrett," she hissed, "I don't want to kill you!"
Garrett froze. He looked into her eyes and saw the desperate madness within, and noticed, for the first time, that her eyes were not those of a normal human. Where a human's eyes possessed tiny striations within the iris, hers were as smooth and flawless as polished gemstones.
"No notes then," he said, relaxing his hand in submission.
She released his wrist and buried her face in her arms again. "I'm sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to scare you."
Garrett exhaled slowly and then laughed. "Don't worry about it," he said, "You are, by far, the least scary of my friends."
She snorted. "What about the fairy?"
"You haven't seen what she does to teacups when she gets angry," Garrett said.
The gir
l laughed, lifting her flawless brown eyes to look at him again.
"You want me to try to guess your name now?" Garrett asked.
She straightened up and shook her head. "No," she said, "I don't really want you to right now... would you mind just sitting with me a while longer?"
Garrett smiled and put his arm around her again. She leaned close, and he enjoyed the feeling of her hair against his cheek.
"Hey, so you go up into the city sometimes, right?" he asked.
"Yeah," she said.
"Would you want to have lunch together or something sometime?" he asked.
"Yeah," she said, "I'd like that. Same place as last time?"
"Last time?" he asked.
She laughed. "Don't worry," she said, "I'll find you. I always do."
Chapter Nineteen
"Start here," Matron Beeks said, thumping a heavy book down on the table in front of Garrett. History of the Holy City was written in Gloarish runes across the green leather cover.
Garrett eyed the thickness of the tome. "What part should I read?" he asked.
"I would start at the beginning and finish at the end," Matron Beeks said, "That is the customary procedure."
"All of it?" Garrett asked, struggling to keep his voice down.
Matron Beeks scowled. "Well, you don't have to read it all in one day," she said, "but it shouldn't take you more than three sittings to finish it."
Garrett stretched his face into a grateful smile and nodded.
"Enjoy," Matron Beeks said, tapping the cover with her finger before walking away.
Garrett drew in a slow breath and ran his finger along the book's spine, plowing up a little furrow of fine dust. He cracked it open and found he had to pry the first chapter loose from the inside cover and feather the pages apart. He slouched forward in his chair and skipped over the first dozen or so pages which seemed to be mostly praises for Mauravant and a long list of former Matrons. The history itself finally began about twenty pages in with the line In the Age of Darkness, the First Mother decreed that a city be raised in the shadow of Padras that his flame might be quenched.
The history swiftly thereafter descended into another fourteen pages of praises for the First Mother for having the wisdom to create Mauravant, the great Mother Worm. Garrett counted the pages until, at last, he came to some mention of the elves, first inhabitants of the city, and their lineage, which continued on for another six pages of coronations and abdications.
He did his best to at least skim over every line, but came to the conclusion that the elves did very little besides pass the throne around between themselves over the many centuries they held Wythr in their possession. Toward the end of the chapter on elves, he noted that the city's monarchs did not so often abdicate their rule to another as they died off or faded, whatever that meant. The last elven monarch listed was a Queen Anaraellu, and, with her name, so ended a rather uninformative chapter.
Garrett blew out a heavy sigh and flipped the next page over.
The next chapter began with the words, In the thirty-seventh year of the Age of Ascension, Brahnek, son of Veremon, known as the Spellbreaker, entered the Holy City and drove out the unworthy. Garrett caught his breath.
He quickly scanned the following lines and the pages beyond, but they proved to be only a succession of the human monarchy in Wythr, a four-page list of names and begats and little more. He kept one finger in his place at the beginning of the chapter and riffled through the rest of the book, discovering it to be more a history of the Mauravantian church than anything else. He laid the book open to the line about the Spellbreaker and got up to go in search of Matron Beeks.
He found her talking to a small group of young women in the green frocks of third-year students. He waited politely to the side until she finished instructing them on the library's reshelving policy.
"Yes, Garrett?" she said, turning to face him, "You aren't done already, are you?"
"No, Matron Beeks," he said, "but I did have a question."
She nodded.
"I was reading about Brahnek, the Spellbreaker, coming to the city, and I was wondering if we had any books about him that I could read."
Matron Beeks glanced toward the column of shelves at the center of the library, and she frowned. "You don't need to waste your time with such... war stories. Go and finish reading the book I've assigned you. When you can recite the line of High Priestesses to me by heart, then you may ask me again about this other nonsense."
"Yes, Matron Beeks," Garrett said. He turned to walk back to his table, and his eyes went to the restricted stacks as well. Even if he could find a way to sneak a book from those shelves, he would never find the right one without the Matron's help.
When he reached the desk again, he searched through the book until he found the line of succession for the High Priestesses of the Church. He stopped counting after twenty-two pages. He wasn't going to find the answer here.
He thought of going to Marla. Surely she would know all about the Spellbreaker and whether he really was the one that the elves called the Songreaver. Then he realized that Marla would want to know why he needed to know, and he did not want to tell her that. How could he tell her that he was on a personal quest to learn how to break the very spell she had cast?
The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he could never let any of the vampires learn what he had in mind. Marla might only have her feelings hurt, but what would someone like Krauss do if he found out that Garrett was trying to negate the power of vampiric magic? Garrett had to keep quiet about this.
Uncle Tinjin was the next logical choice for information, but the old man seemed lost in his research lately, hardly emerging from his study for more than a few minutes at a time. He took most of his meals in there these days and only left the house to purchase new books. Garrett stopped by the door to his study at least twice a day to pick up empty plates and the stacks of books that Uncle deemed unhelpful. He might know more about Brahnek, but he would also want to know what was so important about him that Garrett should interrupt his studies.
That left Max and Cenick, but they were both away to the North on campaign. They had been gone for almost a month now, having sailed a fresh army along the coast to land, just short of the Astorran border.
Serepheni hadn't gone with them. Her new duties kept her too busy to accompany them on the campaign this time, and, though it pained Max to be parted from her, Garrett suspected that he appreciated the greater freedom of command he would now enjoy.
When the chimes rang that signaled his banishment from the library, Garrett hurried out, anxious not only to avoid any sight of Matron Shelbie, but also to try to catch Serepheni before her afternoon prayers. When he reached her office, he found that she was not alone.
"Garrett," Serepheni called out when she saw him outside her door.
"Good Day, Miss Serepheni," Garrett said, then nodded at the man standing next to her, "Good Day, Mister Marsten."
The blonde necromancer quickly hid his flinch of discomfort behind a smile when he saw Garrett. "Master Garrett," he said, "I hardly recognized you without your hood."
"Oh, yeah," Garrett said, feeling suddenly uneasy, "They don't allow hoods in the temple, so I only wear it when I leave."
"I think it's for the best, really," Marsten said, "I mean hoods are so old-fashioned, don't you agree? We're not skulking around churchyards like a bunch of midnight demoniacs anymore, are we?"
Garrett laughed nervously.
"Still," he said, "if we are to bring you into high society, we must do something about those scars."
"What?" Garrett said.
"Here you go," Marsten said, producing a crisp white card from his pocket and handing it to Garrett. Printed in thin, filigreed runes, it read:
Grandmaster Marsten
Resurrectionist
"Nothing is Ever Lost to Those Who Dare to Love Enough"
630 East Primrose St.
"Uh, thanks," Garrett said.
"Really?" Garrett gasped.
Marsten smiled and nodded. "It's the least I can do for the young man who introduced me to this radiant beauty of the emerald cloth." He inclined his head slightly toward Serepheni.
"Oh, Marsten!" Serepheni laughed.
Marsten grinned. "Stop by whenever you have some time, Garrett," he said, "You must give me an opportunity to repay your friendship in whatever small way that I may."
"You can really make my scars go away?" Garrett said.
"Marsten, you mustn't get the boy's hopes up if..." Serepheni chided, her tone suddenly serious.
"I make no promises that I cannot keep, dear lady," Marsten said, placing his hand over his heart, "but I promise this, young Garrett will never again be forced to hide his face beneath a shadowy hood. The young ladies of society will look upon him and swoon with desire."
"Swoon?" Garrett said, "You don't mean faint with fear?"
Marsten's eyes went suddenly hard. "Garrett!" He said, "Never belittle yourself! Leave that to your critics, for a rising star will have many. Ignore them as you would an insect crawling across the toe of an alabaster idol and give their spite no credit by repetition."
"All right," Garrett said.
"What is it that you wanted, Garrett?" Serepheni said.
"Oh... uh, I wanted to ask you if you knew anything about Brahnek Spellbreaker."
"The man that conquered the city long ago?" Serepheni asked.
"Yeah, I was hoping you could tell me a little more about him," Garrett said, "Matron Beeks didn't seem to think that he was all that important."
"Oh, I'm afraid that I don't know much about him myself. I'm sorry," Serepheni said.
"Oh," Garrett said, "Thanks anyway."
"Doing a bit of research, I take it?" Marsten asked.
"Yeah, sort of," Garrett said, "I just read about him, and I wanted to know why they called him the Spellbreaker."
"Ah, that is an interesting story," Marsten laughed.
"You know about him?" Garrett said.
"A little," Marsten said, "They say he discovered one of the seven First Words, the Word of Negation and used it to unmake the magic of the elves."
"First Words?" Garrett said.
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